PHR Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to this website: www.phr.org. PHR.ORG, together with any non-English versions, are operated by Physicians for Human Rights (“PHR”). You are advised to consult the “Privacy” link on the Site each time you visit the Site. Your continued use of the Site constitutes your agreement to the Policy, as it may be amended from time to time.

1. Information We Collect

We may collect your personal information when you submit it to the Site. Upon receiving your personal information, we automatically create a user profile linked to that personal information. If the same personal information is provided in connection with future donations, actions, or activities on the Site, such actions will be added to that user profile. As described below, you may review and update such information at any time.

Registration

We do not ask that you register or enter any personal information to access or use most areas of the Site. However, you may choose to subscribe to certain newsletters or bulletins distributed by PHR, or to join PHR’s mailing list. To do so, you may be required to enter certain personal information, including your email address. If you would like to be removed from our list at anytime please email us at web@phr.org.

Online Activism

To send a message from our online action center to government officials and other decision-makers, you are required to identify yourself by name, address, email address, phone number, or other personal information. PHR includes this information when we send your message. This is necessary for your message to be effective, and in the case of many government officials, it is required. PHR may also use this personal information to contact you with the latest alerts and progress reports. Please note that comments sent to federal agencies may be made available publicly, often via the web, and will sometimes include the full name and address of the person(s) submitting the comments.

PHR’s Social Share and "Tell Your Friends" Pages

To share an article, report, or action alert, you may be required to enter your name, email address, social media handle, and the email address(es) of your intended recipient. PHR includes your name, email address, and social handle (if provided) when we send your message.

Donations and Gifts; Secure Transactions

In order to make a donation or an “honor or memorial gift” (i.e., a donation in someone else’s name) through the Site, you will be required to input certain personal information about yourself and, in the case of an honor or memorial gift, the person for whom the gift is made. PHR will use your personal information and the gift recipient’s personal information that you provide for the sole purpose of fulfilling the honor or memorial gift, in a manner consistent with this Policy. By submitting personal information about others, you hereby represent and warrant that you have full authority to do so.

When you donate to PHR via the Site, your donation information (i.e., your name, address, donation amount, last four digits of your credit card, expiration date of your credit card, and the name and email address of the recipient, if applicable) is encrypted and transmitted via a secure connection. PHR uses your credit card information only for the purpose of processing your donation. We will not disclose this information except as necessary to process your donation or as required by law, and we do not store it once your donation has been processed.

Communications Between You and PHR

As described in this Policy, you may contact PHR or subscribe to newsletters and other mailings, and PHR may respond to your inquiries or request for mailings. Additionally, when you provide PHR with your email address and mailing address, we may contact you to ask you to become a member of PHR. You can choose not to receive such requests by contacting us at web@phrusa.org. If you have opted to receive any of our publications by email, you are able at any time to unsubscribe by clicking a link that appears in the email publication itself, or by emailing us at web@phr.org.

2. Other Information We Collect

Cookies; Tracking Mechanisms

Sometimes we collect information about you without your submitting it. For example, PHR uses cookies to prepopulate forms for users, to auto-populate forms, and to track user patterns on the Site. These cookies help PHR understand what parts of the Site are most interesting to our users. The information in the cookie includes a user’s IP address and is transmitted to and stored by Google. You may at any time delete any cookies by using the relevant option of your internet or mobile browser or by deleting the cookies on your hard drive or mobile device. PHR tracks open rates, click-throughs and the IP address of Site users to measure the effectiveness of our campaigns and discourage fraudulent uses.

“Web beacons” are communications with a server performed when retrieving the content of a webpage, and enable us to track the number and timing of visitors to certain sections of the Site. We may employ web beacons to help us compile aggregated statistics regarding the operations of the Site. We prohibit web beacons on our Site from being used by third parties to collect or access your personal information.

Analytics and Online Advertising

PHR has implemented Google Analytics for Display Advertising and Demographics and Interest Reporting on the Site. PHR uses Google's interest-based advertising or third-party audience data to better understand our website visitors and to help refine our online ad campaign strategies.

PHR uses Remarketing pixels with Google Analytics and other third-party vendors to advertise online. PHR and third-party vendors, including Google, use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) together to inform, optimize, and serve PHR ads on sites across the internet, based on a given user's past visits to this Site.

You can opt-out of Google Analytics for Display Advertising and any associated advertising placement and tracking features by modifying your Ads Settings or by downloading this browser extension. For more information on how Google Analytics may use your data, you may review its policy entitled “How Google uses data when you use our partners' sites or apps” and located at this link.

Additionally, using the settings of your internet or mobile browser, you can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies. Consult your browser Help menu or the vendor documentation for your specific software to learn the correct way to modify your cookies. If you choose to turn off cookies, you may not have access to many features that make your browsing of our Site smoother, and some of our services may not function properly. If you continue to use our Site without changing your settings, you consent to our use of cookies and other tools on the Site.

If you do not want us to collect information about your geographic location, you must disable the technology that transmits this information.

3. Use/Sharing of Your Information

Names and postal addresses of current and former members of PHR may be rented or exchanged with other organizations or publications under the procedures outlined below. Email addresses, however, will NEVER be shared, traded, or otherwise divulged.

Like most other nonprofit membership organizations, PHR obtains the names of potential new members by renting the membership lists or subscriber lists of like-minded organizations and publications. Lists may also be exchanged with other organizations. Whether by exchange or rental, the lists are protected by strict privacy procedures. All exchanges are made on a "blind" basis. Lists are never given into the physical possession of the organization which has rented or exchanged them. This safeguard is necessary to prevent one organization from knowing who the members of any other organization are. Instead, usually through a list broker, the list, either in the form of labels or electronic media, is sent to a mail house which prepares the mailing without the mailing organization ever seeing who is on the rented or exchanged list. The only time an organization gets possession of a name from a rented or exchanged list is when the person receiving the invitation to join responds by sending a reply back to the inviting organization. PHR will contractually ensure that vendors involved in this process hold all member addresses in strict confidence and do not offer lists to third parties.

PHR will always honor an offline or online member or donor's request to be withheld from mailing lists made available for exchange or rental. If you would like to request to be withheld from our mailing list rental or exchange, please contact the membership department at web@phrusa.org or call (646) 564-3720; please be specific in letting us know which address you would like withheld. To manage your email subscriptions, you can click "unsubscribe" at the bottom of any list email you receive from PHR.

We keep confidential any personal information entered during registration, though we may share aggregate information about website usage and traffic patterns, stripped of any personally identifiable information, to third parties to comply with various reporting obligations and for business or marketing purposes. We may also share limited personally identifiable information with third parties on a confidential basis to enable a third party to perform certain tasks, such as maintain an email list or send email alerts and/or newsletters, on our behalf.

4. Employment

In connection with seeking employment, volunteer, or internship opportunities with PHR, you may decide to submit, through our Site or otherwise, personal information (including your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, and any other personal information requested on our online and offline forms, as well as an electronic or paper copy of your resume/CV). All information entered into any online or offline forms related to employment or volunteering is strictly private, and will be viewed by PHR only to assess your qualifications as an employee, volunteer, or intern for PHR.

5. Other Websites

This Policy applies only to the Site. If you visit any unaffiliated website linked to the Site (for example, Twitter, Facebook, or other social media sites), you are subject to that entity’s own privacy policies, which we do not control or monitor. You should review the privacy policies of all third-party websites before you visit them. PHR has not reviewed all of the sites linked to this Site and it makes no representations or warranties as to the privacy practices, functioning, or content of any sites linked to this Site.

6. International Use

This Privacy Policy is intended to meet the laws and regulations of the United States, and despite the global nature of the internet, PHR makes no claims that the Site is appropriate or may be viewed or used outside the United States. Furthermore, our databases are located in the United States. By sending us your data, you consent to its transfer to and storage within the United States. Irrespective of the country in which you reside or from which you access the Site, you authorize PHR to use your personal information in the United States and any other country where PHR operates. Access to the Site from countries or territories where such access is illegal or contrary to applicable rules or regulations is prohibited. Those who access the Site from outside the United States do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws, rules, and regulations. 

7. Children’s Privacy

The Site is not targeted toward, and we do not seek or desire to collect information from, children under the age of 13. Therefore, we will not knowingly request information from persons under such age. Please do not provide any personal information to us for any reason unless you are at least 13 years of age, and please caution your children not to do so. If we become aware that we have collected any personal information from children under 13, we will promptly use commercially reasonable efforts to delete such information from our databases. Consistent with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, if a child under 13 has provided personal information to us through the Site without verifiable parental consent, a parent or guardian may inform us at web@phrusa, and we will use commercially reasonable efforts to delete such information, subject to applicable law and this Policy.

8. California Privacy Rights

PHR does not track its users over time and across third party websites to provide targeted advertising and therefore does not respond to Do Not Track (DNT) signals. However, some third party sites do keep track of your browsing activities when they serve you content, which enables them to tailor what they present to you. If you are visiting such sites, certain web browsers allow you to set the DNT signal on your browser so that third parties (particularly advertisers) know that you do not want to be tracked. You should consult your web browser’s “Help” feature for instructions on how to set the DNT signal.

Third parties that have content embedded on PHR’s websites, such as a social feature or a stock ticker, may set cookies on a user’s browser and/or obtain information about the fact that a web browser visited the Site from a certain IP address. PHR does not control or monitor such practices. You should contact such third parties directly to opt out.

9. Notice Procedures

Please send all Privacy Policy-related communications to web@phrusa.org or PHR, 256 West 38th Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY, 10018. To the fullest extent permitted by law, you agree to receive all legally required notices regarding this Privacy Policy or any privacy or security breaches relating to the Site at the email address you use to contact the Site.

10. Governing Law

You agree that this Policy and your use of this Site shall be governed in all respects by the laws of the State of New York. Any dispute relating to this Policy and your use of this Site shall be resolved solely in the state or federal courts located in New York, New York.

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